The surprise announcement and accelerated release of hip-hop star Future's eponymous album last week generated waves of excitement and consumption among listeners. His first full-length since last February's RIAA-gold certified EVOL, the 17-song FUTURE gave his rap fanbase what they'd been waiting for, with memorable bars bolstered by beats by top trap producers like Metro Boomin, Southside and Zaytoven.

Yet not long thereafter, rumors began to spread on social media that he planned yet another full-length release imminently, confirmed just days ago by Future himself. His second album release in as many weeks, HNDRXX debuted last night on Apple Music's Beats 1 internet radio station and is available via streaming and download platforms as of today.

While the feat is more achievable then ever in this agile and competitive digital music marketplace, few artists can successfully pull off back-to-back commercial album releases, and fewer would bother to try. Last August, R&B artist Frank Ocean ambitiously dropped two such projects one day apart, with the second of these entitled Blonde debuting the following week atop the Billboard 200. Notably, despite its strong first week, the album has still not yet achieved RIAA sales certification.

Still, though little precedent exists for it in the post-CD era, Future's unconventional and aggressive release strategy promises to be a fruitful one in chart terms, continuing a tradition of Hot 100 chart-topping debuts that began with 2015's DS2 and continued for follow-ups What A Time To Be Alive and EVOL.

By now, Epic Records knows full well that it has one of hip-hop's hottest acts on its hands, one whose new music consistently generates attention, buzz and consumption. "Used To This," the Drake-featuring single from November that peaked at No. 14 on the Hot 100 and currently holds the No. 60 slot, doesn't appear on either release. It's hard to imagine any major label passing up the opportunity to parlay an artist's gold-certified single into a successful subsequent album release. Choosing not to include it suggests that Epic and Future have confidence that he's on a new level compared even to last year's apparent heights.

Getting FUTURE to No. 1 seemed a foregone conclusion based on the album announcement alone. Scheduled on a particularly light release week in terms of competition, the exceedingly high anticipation for its release was sure to prompt significant pre-orders and then robust streams and additional purchases post-release. In line with that logic, just days ago Billboard reported that FUTURE would almost certainly take the top slot of the Hot 100 in its opening frame with 150,000 equivalent album units.

The presumed risk, then, comes from the release of HNDRXX today, just one week after FUTURE. Some wonder if the move will result in oversaturation, leading to lower comparative sales for HNDRXX and diminished overall sales for FUTURE due to cannibalization. Indeed, if the second record offered more of the same, that scenario would be a given barring an unexpected breakout single.

But Epic and Future went this route with good reason, knowing that the more R&B-focused HNDRXX could potentially outperform its immediate predecessor. The rap-centric FUTURE offered no guest appearances from other hip-hop artists, satisfying his base but in effect limiting its crossover potential. HNDRXX, however, boasts some tremendous features, by Rihanna and The Weeknd respectively.

Getting two of the biggest stars in contemporary pop music to appear on Future's latter record energizes all three their respective fan bases. Though HNDRXX has been out for mere hours at this point, "Selfish (featuring Rihanna)" and "Comin Out Strong (featuring The Weeknd)" are already climbing iTunes' Top Songs chart. No doubt similar things are happening at Spotify and elsewhere.

Given that multi-metric consumption means that individual track purchases and streams translate to album sales equivalents both at Billboard and the RIAA, HNDRXX seems likely to get a boost from these two particular songs, aiding its potential debut atop the Hot 100. That might trigger Epic to pursue one or both of them as proper singles, something perhaps already planned. Compared with FUTURE, HNDRXX is far more likely to be the album from which the next single will come from, with or without the benefit of its two pop features. That could very well be the key to Future not only logging two consecutive No. 1 albums in two weeks, but in doing even bigger numbers for HNDRXX.